a short break

Ok, so I underwent surgery recently, so that’s why I haven’t been posting.

Hopefully, I can ease back into things – my wife has a couple friends from her improv class that are interested in trying out the air hockey and this Thursday seems like one of the best times to come out… so, we’ll see. Plus, my wife will be out this Saturday as we’ll be headed out to her folks’ place afterwards.

New #31

Last night was pretty awesome. Donovan is in town. In another case of “it’s a small world”, Donovan and I are working in the same building in downtown Chicago. I got a text from him saying he was eager to play some air hockey. I went to pick him up, and there he was… air hockey jersey on – and his fingers were already taped up… which cracked me up. He was like a little kid too excited for the first day of school who slept in his school uniform. Donovan is a pretty cool guy and easy to talk to. The 45 minute trip to the ‘burbs went by very quickly.

We got there, and after helping Don warm up – he started playing his Challenge Set against Mike. Since they had “so much time” – he decided to play best 4 of 7 sets. I have to say, I really like the way Donovan plays… he’s got a smooth style. He’s not about power, but succeeds with great control, time delays, and accurate overs. He did seem to fall slightly into Mike’s hands when he was on defense, though. I’ve seen it many, many times. Mike’s game is pretty fast, and he takes pot shot after pot shot – he trains you to be ready to accept a shot at any time. When I first started playing him – my defense resembled windshield wipers… and I tended to turtle up a bit and play too far back. This is when Mike’s offense is at its best. If you play back, he’s straight shots will come at you. I don’t even think Mike realizes what he’s doing – watching him play doesn’t seem to have any method whatsoever, but if you *do* manage to stay out, Mike’s got a nasty left wall under and a far too accurate forehand straight. He’ll kill you if you do play a triangle defense and you don’t recenter constantly. From what I saw, when Mike had a lot of possessions and didn’t give up the puck on unforced turnovers, he did very, very well. When Donovan was patient – hitting off goal after off goal, I saw Mike getting impatient, and chasing after pucks that he shouldn’t, causing him to get away from his goal – and Donovan could rip a quick right wall under for an easy goal.

I couldn’t stand there and not play air hockey while these guys went at it…. So I started playing Geoff. I nearly beat him the last time I played, so I was feeling pretty confident I could do the same. I have to say this about Geoff. He does 2 things well… 1. He doesn’t make mistakes, and 2. He’s able to adapt his game. The stuff that worked on Geoff on Tuesday didn’t work last night. He doesn’t change up his offense quite so much as change up his defense. It’s like he decides what shot he’s going to take away – and sticks with it until it doesn’t work – then changes things up again. Geoff’s never been able to blow me out of the water, which I think is what makes him so frustrating to play. He seems so damn beatable. I gave him some pretty good games, but he came out on top again.

Then I played Nick… and it turned into one of the closest sets we’ve ever played. I usually work a cut/rwu against him… but he’s learned to be very, very still for the straight shots. Usually adding a little delay or doing a very quick rwu is also a very good way for me to score on him as well. My cuts weren’t working – and when he’s not concentrating, my cross works well against him as well. I feel like when I need to hit an accurate shot.. my cross and right wall unders are probably the best. I can count on them to work, but they’re not exactly complementary shots. In this set, I did incredibly well with controlling the puck. I didn’t feel like I had a shot I could go to at any given time, but every game in the set was tight. The thing that seemed to work for me best – my ‘go-to’ shot, if you will, was the still puck. Pump, pump, delay, pump, STRIKE! I got Nick a bunch of times with it… even when he was expecting it. Brutal. If I remember correctly – I won 4-2, but every game was 7-6, or 7-5.

We took a much needed break, and we came back to seeing new people playing alongside Mike and Donovan. It’s always cool to see new people playing, and we were given an opportunity to show some people how to play. The basic tips were given. How to hold the mallet, how to stand, don’t volley, and the triangle defense. Pretty much once you get those 4 basic things down… and get a modicum of puck control – you can learn more about drifts and shots. Nick and I fooled around with these guys for awhile. One guy I played with, and tried to express how important it is to stay away from the goal on defense. I told him most scores come from straight shots and that is the way you need to defend it. I hammered it home by only attempting straight shots against him, and let him defend it. His offense was shaky, and was weird to see someone struggle to hit straight shots… his natural motion was to hit only banks. Hopefully, we’ll see him back.

I screwed around with Geoff some more, and suggested I needed to work on my left wall under. It’s been a weakness of mine – to only use straights and right wall shots. I either have the accuracy and not the velocity, or the velocity and not the accuracy. When I really try – I seem to be able to do a good job of hitting left wall overs, and even closed out a game against Nick earlier with it. It’s a shot he gets me with consistently, so I thought I’d practice it some.

Nick wanted a rematch, and generally I’m happy to just play one person one set and be happy with that, but Nick wants to even out – and I still had some game left in me. I trotted out my left wall under on Nick – and complemented with my cross – was pretty deadly. I gave up trying to even do the cut/rwu attack in favor of this. I’ve been mixing my my simple diagonal drift with an open V.. and really concentrating on the angle of the open v, so that it doesn’t get away from me. I attempted the still puck again – but he seemed to be more on top of it this time around. It didn’t matter, I played my best set against Nick. I think after the one time he charged and stuffed my shot – I killed him anytime he got away from the goal. Any time he’d charge – it just helped me… and the transition game… this was the first time I clearly dominated the transition game. I was scoring fast goals for pucks that Nick was reaching for. I feel like my game has benefitted from taking more pot shots and taking more chances in the transition. Nick ended up winning 2 games of the set – but both were 7-6 nailbiters. A combination of my transition scores, and my newly found accurate left wall under made all the difference. That, and just basic puck control and not scoring on myself so damn much. Nick wasn’t happy, but it felt good to play so well and gain confidence with another shot.

I felt like I had knocked the dust off my arm, and I’m back to playing as good as I’m capable of right now.

…so after that set, I went back to watching Mike and Donovan. It was heading into their 7th and deciding set, and both looked really tired. Donovan said his arm was cramping up, and Mike’s game face had melted to a “I don’t care who wins, this is so much fun” look. Nearly 4 hours had gone by and the two were cracking jokes and complimenting each other more than getting down on themselves for making mistakes. Mike looked like the fresher of the two. Donovan was patient on offense – but it looked like he could have been more patient. Some points took minutes to decide even though many, many shots were being fired. Mike went up a quick 3 games – and the writing was on the wall. Donovan had to find some energy to compete, and came back in the 4th game to push it to game 5 – but it was all he had. Donovan missed with his overs, and Mike blocked everything else. It took awhile, but Mike finished the job with a 7-0 shutout. A battle won in the 7th set. The 7-0 was even more impressive considering that there were few games won by a large margin. So, what’s interesting is that Mike now takes Don’s ranking, but because Don is ‘rated’ criminally low – the sets he did take off of Mike will likely give him a much higher rating. I find this interesting.

On the drive home, Don thought that he wasn’t fully ‘prepared’.. and that he petered out too soon. We then went to a gas station where he bought a giant pile of candy. I have no idea why – he said he didn’t have any of it that night or the next day… though he did consider ‘carbing up’ the next time he plays a long air hockey session.

I just got back from lunch with Donovan.. he was nice enough to put our lunch on his expense account. I love those expense accounts. Mmmmm mmmm.. Giordano’s deep dish, Chicago style.

thinking outside the box

So. I have a question for you. I know I’m a pretty new player and all – and I don’t really expect this to change, but I’d like to challenge the concept of choosing the ‘winner’ of a contest by the number of games won. Seems to me that this is based on the concept of a table being created for the purposes of making money at an arcade. First to 7 points – seems like a long enough game.. or it shuts down after 7 minutes – is a complete carryover from these times and doesn’t necessarily predict who the better player is in a professional competition. Like, in football.. if a team scores more points than the other team 3 out of 4 quarters – they don’t necessarily win. They win by scoring the most points. Period. In air hockey – it’s whoever wins the most “quarters”. If you edge someone out in a game, but get blown out in another… the game count is still 1-1. Does it really reflect who the better player is?

I guess I was inspired by last week’s games between Goran, Billy and I when we played “until someone has a lead of 7 points”. Goran and Billy went at it for a *very* long time. It seems as though this is a very good indication of who the better player was… or in this case – who had the most stamina. It occurred to me, playing a game up to 50 points, and winning by at least 2 would be a better way of determining who the better player was. You could even have it timed – every 10 minutes – a 5 minute break, or something like that. Or have ‘long’ time outs for taking an extended break and ‘short’ time outs for clearing your head.

Also… you could measure how close the match was very accurately. If you win 50-20 – it’s domination… if it’s 52-50, it’s very close. One could set up a ratings system based on how well one defeats another player.

I think one of the biggest considerations is “how exciting” each method is. A blowout either way isn’t fun… and would be real drudgery going up to 50 (though maybe a score of 35 would be better – which is basically 5 games of 7 points). I guess a normal set has its moments of when there’s a close game.. it’s very intense. It seems unfair to me to have very significant outcomes based on what could be a series of close games…. But I have to admit – it’s very exciting to watch. Imagine a close game that gets more and more tense as you go. A close game of 35 points near its finish would be very exciting to watch… and still… you have to score those points – you can’t just kill the clock or something. You can’t give up… your concentration would just rise and rise – instead of having these crazy peaks and valleys. I think it would be interesting to see.

…and it may be a better way to determine a winner.

Anyone with me, or am I a crackpot?

rough night

Tuesday…

I don’t normally play on Tuesday, but it seemed like the night that the most people were going to be out this week. Donovan is in town, and I got a hold of him to give him a lift – but he had a couple late meetings and figured he’d come out on Thursday and Saturday. I’m looking forward to it.

So, I get there and Nick and Mike are in the middle of a challenge match. World ranking #35 is on the line (August Parra – who Mike beat twice in Houston beat Syed to jump way ahead of Mike is now ranked #16 [don't get me started about how accurate the rankings are]). So, I get there and Nick is up 2 sets to 0. I must be Mike’s lucky charm because he came storming back and won the next two sets… and the game count was 11-11 – dead even. Both players were playing very well… and hitting lots of different shots. Nick was playing reserved and not busting out his goofy Phil Arnold impersonation… but he was still getting riled up. There were times when his intensity made Mike speed up his game – which seemed to give Nick the edge… and there were times when Nick’s intensity just caused him to make costly mistakes. Both seemed to be hitting tons of accurate overs against each other – which really impressed me… and it was just a back n’ forth battle. Nick was talking to me about the set… and I noticed that Mike was playing what I call a ‘false rail’ defense.. He’d start out in a triangle defense, then after nearly every shot – he’d pull back to the rail. If the shot was a straight – and hits the middle of the goal – Mike has a pretty good chance of catching the puck. The key is to hit deceptive shots that hit the corner. In between games, I practiced with Nick as Mike wandered off. I tried to do my best Mike impersonation on defense. Anyway.. I was perfectly willing to talk to Mike about the match, but he was in serious, “don’t talk to me” mode. I wasn’t playing favorites – I even called a charge against Nick… Mike was ‘on offense’ – but Nick came charging.. Mike was also hitting the puck forward, but Nick’s forward motion caused the puck to fly off the table.

I started playing Pat in a set – and our games lasted forever. It seems like the other table sends pucks flying a little too frequently – and the games take a long time. Plus, Pat and I have each other figured out pretty well, and the games last a long time as it is. Nick got up 3-2 in the set count, and a possible deciding set started when Pat and I were playing. Pat came out of the gate and picked up on my offense very well. I don’t know why, but I start out being lazy and for some reason I keep forgetting that I need to be deceptive against Pat… and if you aren’t deceptive with your shots – or make him freeze… his defense is incredibly good – it doesn’t seem to matter how accurate or quick your shots are… he’s there to block it. He took the first game with a number of accurate straights and mixed in a couple of his very hard RWU’s. The 2nd game, everything clicked for me… and I remembered that I tend to do very well when I do the patented Billy Stubbs – position your body to the right. From here – I used an open V attack – but I mixed it up. Sometimes, I’d hit the puck before I sent it into the first rail, sometimes I’d hit the left wall open V with a cut – and sometimes I’d just hit a diagonal drift with a cross. All from the same starting point – I used 3 different drifts, and hit the puck at about 9 different places along those drifts. Each drift had a different angle, and the timing was different. The next game – I beat Pat 7-1, and it was 6-0 before Pat could score… and it was a goofy double bank shot. I had keyed into his offense pretty well – and my defense was spot on. The next couple games were much closer, but I still got the better of Pat. I even went to a still puck offense, and mixed in some pump fakes. Pat has the tendency to freeze up and not react to the pump fakes – which gives me the go for hitting a hard right wall under… and when I felt like I needed a score – I’d go to this. There was one close game, where it was 6-5 when I got the puck – and I hit a right wall drift, which I hadn’t used at all the entire set, and nailed a nice cut shot. For some reason, it felt like the right thing to do – and in this case, it was perfect. There were a couple times in the set, when I was given a lot of possessions and I hit off-goals – and gave Pat so many different looks, that when I hit my on-goal shot – he couldn’t anticipate any shot I was going to go with.

We stopped after it was 3-1, because Nick was up on Mike 3 games to 2 (at least i think it was 3-2)… Pat and I stood back and watched it go down. In the last game, Nick went out ahead – and was playing really high energy.. an almost volley attack. After scoring a couple quick rwu’s on Mike – he slowed down and got it up to 6 points. Mike’s cross was working well for him most of the night, and on his last shot – he missed and came back and he scored the winning shot against himself. In a best of 7 sets… a lot of air hockey is played… it’s really, really hard to play that much and not figure out who the better player was that night… and normally – I’d bet on Mike… but Nick played well – and beat serious Mike. It was a great battle, and I see Mike challenging again to get his rank back… and he has a good chance to get it back. Tonight, though – Nick was the victor. Congrats.

Oh yeah – and then I went ahead and beat up on Pat one last time to take the set 4-1.

Goran came around to watch the last set between Mike and Nick – and started batting the puck around… I wanted to play some more, so we played a set. I actually started out pretty well against Goran.. I know the first game was 4-4 at one point… and I don’t know what it is, but Goran just beats the crap out of me. I’ve seen him lose to people I’ve beaten… and I can’t figure it out… but when I play a set against Goran – I play like garbage. I don’t know if I’m just trying too hard to hit a perfect shot, or set things up just right… but I’ve all but given up on trying to hit an off-goal against him. He steals it every time. And then.. I got a serious case of the ’score on myself’… which – when you’re playing someone better than you… you may as well just hang it up. I give Goran my absolute worst games, and it’s frustrating. He even 7-0′d me the 2nd game. It’s embarrassing how badly he beats me. I guess I just don’t have the offense to keep up with him… but the set ended with me scoring the last 3 points on myself. Completely embarrassing. I mean, I just wanted to crawl into the deepest, tiniest little cave I could find.

So, after that display of complete ineptitude – Geoff was there and wanted to play a set. Geoff is a perennial #3 guy in the state (if you don’t count Robbins)… generally beating up on Pat, Nick, Mike and myself… and only losing consistently to Goran and Billy. Geoff has a game that has no highs nor lows… but he’s got great puck control, is known for having exceptional defense, hits high percentage shots, and just doesn’t make mistakes. The times we’ve played – we tend to go back and forth with the scoring, and he manages to barely come out on top.

After 2 games, it was tied 1-1, and I remember hitting some very nice and intentional overs on him. For some reason, I’m just bad at hitting these – and from what I’ve seen… everyone in IL is getting much, much better at hitting these. Geoff gave it right back to me… and hit a Mike Pitts style quick right wall under (quick setup, hitting a quick rwu from the back right quadrant of the table). It seemed like I should be fast enough to react to that shot… but he was able to sneak some past before I was able to really clamp down on it. I was doing a decent job of playing defense against Geoff… he’s not overpowering, but he plays smart… and if you give him enough posessions – he *will* score. We kept splitting games – and Geoff had started attacking my weaknesses… the right wall over, and a good left wall under… he even did a good job of mixing up the look of the lwu… but I feel like I had found his weakness… and by the 5th game – I was killing Geoff with straight shots. I think at some point Geoff decides what shot he’s going to defend against… and this set he decided he wasn’t going to let me score my right wall under. So.. I found that a line attack against him – mixing in cuts and crosses – hitting them from all along the middle line – worked incredibly well. Every time I hit the puck – he was going back to the rail. I mean, I had completely given up even hitting occasional rail shots, because this was working so well. A quick fake, would send him to the rail – and I’d shoot. When I was actually accurate – I killed him. It seemed like he’d move his mallet over for me just about every time. There were even times when I’d hit the middle of the goal – but he had moved out of the way for me so well, it didn’t matter. I felt like I had solved the puzzle of Geoff as we started into our final game. Things were tight before I broke it open. I maybe hit one rail shot the entire game. It was tied 4-4 – when I ripped back to back cuts and crosses. I got possession, and went back to my attack that Geoff hadn’t stopped for the last couple games… and when I shot – I missed.. but he was *still* going back to the rail. I hit a hard cross and missed right – Geoff caught a tiny piece of it, and it slammed right in my goal. Seriously… scored on myself… and Geoff calls a time out. I thought I’d hand-serve a left-to-right drift, and hit a cut from the right side… which, I don’t think Geoff had blocked one all night.. I miss – and Geoff gets the puck.. and I respond by getting the puck back. I can’t remember what happened, but you wouldn’t believe that I fucking scored on myself *again*… to tie the game at 6-6. Sonofabitch. This time, I go into my line attack.. and one again – set up my shot, and again.. Geoff goes back to the rail – but I miss.. hitting too much of his mallet – even though there was an opening. Geoff gets control, and comes out and hits a perfect left wall over. My mallet was on the goal for the rail shot – right in the middle.. but he squeaked it past.

Geoff has a horseshoe stuck up his ass – I fucking swear. I didn’t score on myself but maybe once the whole set… for me to do that to myself at that point was just terrible. Geoff mentioned earlier in the night that he wants to challenge me for my rank. Even though I haven’t beaten Geoff.. I feel like I’ve gone a long way toward figuring out what I need to do to beat him.

so bent out of shape right now, though. I can’t believe how I gave that game away.

NYC air hockey

Hey, I saw this blog link (on my blog, actually), and thought I’d give a shout-out.

If you live in NYC, it looks like there is a group of people who get together to play once or twice a month. Looks like a great place to play, actually.

http://airhockeynyc.wordpress.com/2009/08/03/and-we-are-go-on-air-hockey-tonight/

they even have videos that were posted on NHL.com… check out the links on their site.

It looks like they have a cool bar/hangout sort of thing going on… but they don’t look terribly competitive, which is totally fine if you’re hanging out and having a beer and chatting with your friends.

It’s interesting to see this side of air hockey, and really.. I wish there were more places in a bar where people could come together and knock the puck around – but I wonder if it ever gets really competitive? I mean, I’ve seen Nick throw chairs… I just don’t see that happening (From what I saw in the video)… but I wonder if people do get in heated matches?

God.. I’d love it if Mr. Rosen could go over there and show them a triangle defense, or at least show them how to hold a mallet. Once you get those things down, the game becomes like a thousand times more interesting. I mean, it would be amazing fun to show them how good one could get.

Just a reminder…

I ran into Mike last Thursday and he was upset that I didn’t write more about his incredible run in the Pro C bracket – upsetting nearly everyone in his path for a remarkable win… beating out August Parra (twice!), Niki Flanagan, and John Stucky among others. All great players.

…but I’m too lazy to write this stuff up… and unless I get in the habit of actually interviewing people, or recording everything – I’ll never be able to ‘report’ accurately. Besides, this is like every other blog… which is typically solely about the person writing it… self-serving and subjective. So, although I know there are a lot of stories that are worthwhile to write about – I can’t get around to them.

So, I’d like to encourage the Mike’s out there who want to write up their own air hockey exploits, or to get some things off their chest – or whatever. Now.. I understand you could write something and post it at airhockeyworld.com and have a bigger audience… but pretty much anything you write there is ‘up for debate’. This can be annoying. If you’d like… I can take away the ability to write comments here… or I can leave them on. Basically, I’d love to hear of other people’s experiences with air hockey. You could write about your tournament or anything else.

…and I’d really like to hear from you East Coast guys. That would be awesome.

…so – just shoot me an email at airhockeyguy@gmail.com.

The Venezuelan look

I did such a terrible job of taking pictures of the tourney in Houston… but I did manage to get a picture of the sweet jerseys the Venezuelans were wearing.

Check it:

So I got my first challenge

My immediate thought was that I had offended someone, and someone is “demanding satisfaction”… and instead of pistols at dawn at 10 paces, it would be pucks and mallets at 8 ft.

Nick, of course, with his poor finish is trying to save face by challenging up. Can’t blame him. The thing is.. he’s challenging Mike first (since he’s ranked higher), so he may not even want to challenge me since he’ll be ranked higher. Pat, on the other hand, has also challenged me – which is like me challenging Goran. I’ve never won a set against Goran, and Pat’s never won a set against me.

Now.. normally, I’d just say, “sure, let’s play.” …but since I’m not the challenger, I may be able to work this to my advantage. First.. as a newer player – and more out of shape player, I think I may want to play a best 3 out of 5 sets, instead a best 4 of 7 (the challenged gets to pick). The other thing is that the challenged gets to play on his home turf – within reason. I could probably scare up some people to watch the match if it was in Chicago. It would be cool to have my friends around to see an official challenge match. Against Nick, it’d be pretty heated and I’m guessing it would be pretty close.

Should be fun, either way. I think I’d want to get some practice in before we set a date to do this, though I’m sure Nick is eager to do it as soon as humanly possible.

Press Your Luck – Texas Tea Variation

Ok, so after the tourney, most of the top guys stuck around to play a little game of Press Your Luck. An air hockey variant invented by Don James. It works like this.

In the first round, players are arranged according to skill. The guy on the bottom goes first (weakest player) and plays the guy next to his skill level. He is given the option to ‘press his luck’… and if he does not want to press his luck, he will get 0 points, and the next person is up. If he does want to, he is given the puck and he tries to score. If he’s unsuccessful (he’s scored on), he gets -1 points, and in this variant… he has to take a shot of tequila (or whiskey).

If he’s successful, he gets a point… and the next skillful player jumps up on defense and can press his luck again. If he’s successful, he gets 2 points (for the 2nd person scored on), and if he opts to quit after that would get 2+1=3 points for the round. If he beats 3 in a row, he’d get 1+2+3=6 points, and on and on… Get it? Oh, and after the round is done… the order is reset by the number of points you have… and the person with the lowest number of points is called the ‘gatekeeper’.

Two rounds were completed before the game was suspended for the awards ceremony. I believe they started over because everyone had sobered up.

I took some pictures of players taking their shots.

Keith Fletcher had to take a bunch of early shots and was pretty hilarious in his bitching about how he doesn’t drink. He was such a goddamn pansy that he’d look at all the shots to take the one which had the least amount of booze in it. This picture is funny because it really shows just how he really, really didn’t want to take the shot.

Goran was just the opposite, and I barely got this picture taken before he was done with his shot.

Don was moving around too much to even get his picture into focus… too intent on upsetting the masters that were playing.

Davis was enjoying his drinking so much, I’m surprised he didn’t just throw the puck his own goal… well.. that’s practically what he did, anyway – but he made a good show of it.

Then there was Ehab and Billy. Always competing, even when they’re competing… they had a little contest to see who could shove a lightsaber down their throats the furthest. I think Billy won… as Ehab didn’t look like he really had it.

…and I have no idea who won. I went off to play some air hockey with Mr. Rosen… which was awesome, even though I played really bad. I’d shoot, miss, then lose the puck. Pretty embarrassing. I mean, not as embarrassing as Keith trying to hold his liquor, but still pretty bad.

US Open, Houston TX – Part 6 – The Finals

Ok, so where did I leave off? Oh yeah. My tournament was pretty much over by Saturday night, so come Sunday – it was all the bigshots still left to play.

It feels like there are 2 tournaments going on. There’s the top 12 people – of which, anyone could probably win (some more likely than others) depending on how the seeding falls out. Some players would *love* to fall in their seeding to set up matchups between players they traditionally fare well against. On the other hand, there’s everyone else… Seeding becomes very important, and one would rather have a higher seed so they play someone on the far bottom of the bracket… and being stuck in the middle sets you up to play someone really good too soon. I mean, I had to play Tim Weissman and Mike Pitts – I think far too early. Had I had an easier go, I could have ended up in a much higher bracket.

Anyway. Sunday, like I said, is for the big dogs. I had heard that Sunday is traditionally a good time to get in a bunch of side matches for ratings… and even though I was walking around SRO in my kneepad, and my mallet in my pocket… with my fingers taped up – I didn’t play a single match all day. It was a little disappointing, honestly. I should have been a little more aggressive in my search for someone to play. Anyway – the most important thing was to cheer on Billy. Billy’s first big match of the day was against Danny Hynes.

Billy started out looking really shaky. He did stuff I’d never seen him do – which was turn the puck over a lot, and he lost his mallet a couple times. I was watching with Don, and he seemed confused as to why Billy was losing his mallet. It took us a game or two before Don could pump us up to cheer for all of Billy’s points… though it seemed as though Danny was having his way with Billy – the scores were actually pretty close. 7-4 in the first game, where Billy really looked shaky, then 7-5 in the 2nd, and Billy was still making some unforced errors. Only by the 3rd game did Billy really seem to settle and get in his zone. That game came down to the final point, and if I remember correctly – Billy had a chance to put it away… but it was Danny who came out the victor – and with a 3-0 lead. After being down 3-0, something clicked in Billy. Maybe he didn’t have the expectation to win, anymore… I dunno – but he looked sharp and won game #4 7-3. I recall seeing Danny miss a bunch of shots as Billy’s defense finally settled down to force Danny to take chances he didn’t need to take earlier. It seemed like that little taste of victory calmed his nerves down even more… and Billy was able to win the next two 7-5, and 7-6. Danny was making the games much closer as time went on… and for the final game – it felt as though Billy still had momentum on his side. Game 6 was another 7-6 game, so it was split… it seems as though Danny just dug deep and made the proper adjustments for the final game. He played about as perfectly as he could – and ended Billy’s winning streak, and taking the set. It was an incredibly close match. One of the things about air hockey that is simply devastating is that unlike many other 1-on-1 sports, is that you can win a game by one point. Tennis, ping pong, or volleyball – one can’t win a game by edging someone out by one point. It’s simply brutal that one can win by the tiniest of margins. Even though this set went down to the final game – it wasn’t even the closest set against Danny. Brian Accrocco outscored Danny in their set against each other, but in the final game – Brian lost to Danny 7-6… the slimmest of margins.

Another interesting thing about Billy’s set with Danny was seeing Billy’s girlfriend, Karissa watching on the sideline. She was tense through the whole match, and was on the edge of her seat the entire time. She’s come out to watch us practice a couple times and always seemed bored out of her mind. In Houston, she couldn’t be more engaged.

I’d like to think that could be anyone’s reaction to the game. If I were watching air hockey on tv like it was the NFL… and I knew the background, the history of the players, play by play analysis in realtime (or even paused), with Madden-like graphics and play analysis… I wouldn’t have to play, I’d be fully engaged – and I think a lot of other people would, too.

Anyway – after that devastating loss, Billy got sent to the loser’s bracket.. and had to face the reigning world champ, Ehab Shoukry. Ehab is known for his defense. People rate him as the best without anyone even close. He has some of the best puck control and a pretty wicked offense and a very even keel demeanor. From what I could understand – Ehab only loses consistently to Jimmy Heilander… a person who some consider to have the best offense in the world. It was going to be interesting to see how Billy would match up to him. Unfortunately, Billy’s nervousness came back and again played shaky. Ehab took the first game 7-4. It seemed like somewhere in the 2nd game, though maybe it was the 3rd game – that Billy really decided to attack Ehab with right wall overs. From the side, and from what I remember (I’m a terrible reporter), it seemed as though Billy was hitting 50%+ right wall overs on Ehab. What was amazing was that there was a big series of shots where it seemed to be open nearly every time, but Billy had barely overshot it… hitting the side of the goal. Billy had some success with this, but he lost the next two games 7-6 and 7-5. The next game, something clicked – and Billy’s defense kicked into high gear – and he just stuffed all but 3 of Ehab’s shots… and he took a relatively easy win with a score of 7-3. The 5th, and final game – it came down to the wire, again.. and Ehab stuck it out to win the set with a final score of 7-6. While the game count may be 4-1, only 3 total goals separated Billy and Ehab. That took Billy out of the tournament – and into the 5/6 bracket… where he had to play Anthony Marino again. I didn’t watch that one, as Billy beat him 4-1, and averaged over a point per game ahead the first time around. I had no doubt he’d do the same again.

Other notable games… I got to see Jose Mora play – and man is he fun to watch. He’s got a great style of play that I would never, ever try to emulate. I saw him play Tim Weissman, and beat him up pretty good 4 games to 1. I feel like I shouldn’t cut this short, but in the finals, it was Ehab vs. Danny… who have a long history of playing each other. Danny ended up winning 4-1, but it was a much, much closer match than what the scores would indicate. Both players were pumped up, and Ehab – who’s typically very calm and collected, displayed a number of outbursts. It was a match for all the marbles, so I wouldn’t have expected anything less.

It was a hell of a day, and I probably got to witness some of the best air hockey that’s ever been played.